in the immanence of a personality worthy of undiminished existence. To criticism this conclusion should be of importance as offering a criterion by which the worth of literature may be rated. This, of course, does not comprise all species of writing, inasmuch as there is much of even permanent value written that does not really belong to its domain. We find such instances in the various sciences, where, if it be objectively presented, the author is completely merged in his theme. A book may have sufficient significance to found a new department of knowledge without in the least pertaining to literature. In fact, in exact proportion as the writer is truly scientific or objective in the handling of his materials he recedes from the literary stand-point, which is subjective. Hence arises the difficulty of assigning to philosophy its appropriate place. In so far as it is objective in method it remains but a part of science, passing into the realm of letters so soon as it takes the author's self as the starting-point. But as his personality is irrepressible he continually transgresses the proper bounds, thus vitiating much. acute philosophy while adding interesting studies to the bulk of literature. We should, therefore, beware of applying this standard to productions without, although it rules supreme within its sphere. To revert, then, to the point of departure, it was with a feeling that justice had not been done to Homer that we heard his immortality attributed to a design on his part rather than to his character. Not to insist upon the circumstance that such a purpose can be revealed only by means of a questionable cipher, the fact of the bard's undying fame seemed to require a deeperlying cause. We have pointed out that the morality of one's writings, as truly as of one's actions, is more commonly traceable to the personality than to any distinct design, and have thus discovered the seat of the greatest strength and vitality either man or letters may possess. Character, individuality, and personality are so intimately knit together that they appear to embrace the principle of life, with which they apparently are indissolubly one. Existence, therefore, in literature, no less than in man, depends, it would appear, upon the indwelling of this trinity. M. Arthur Bridal ART. VII.-WESLEY AS A SCIENTIST. THROUGHOUT the centennial year of John Wesley's death there have appeared in different church periodicals a series of papers descriptive of some of his more prominent characteristics. It shall be the object of the present undertaking to study Wesley as a scientific writer. It may be a surprise to many to learn that he turned from his work of evangelizing the world long enough to even notice scientific subjects. As a matter of fact, the writer is embarrassed in an effort to present in the limits of a single paper the baldest outlines of his expressions of belief and opinions upon scientific topics. When Wesley took the whole world as his parish he did so in more senses than one, and within this all-embracing parish there arose no problems which he did not in his own way attempt to solve. It will be no surprise, therefore, to those who are familiar with the inflexible will with which he settled, so far as he was concerned, all theological questions, to find that he treated astronomy, geology, and medicine ex cathedra also. Wherever the length of the quotations does not preclude their insertion in full Wesley's own words will be given. ETERNITY. It is so vast that the narrow mind of man is utterly unable to comprehend it. But does it not bear some affinity to another incomprehensible thing, immensity? May not space, though an unsubstantial thing, be compared with another unsubstantial thing, duration? But what is immensity? It is boundless space. And what is eternity? It is boundless duration.* TIME. We know not what it properly is; we cannot well tell how to define it. But is it not, in some sense, a fragment of eternity, broken off at both ends? † These definitions of time and eternity, while not strictly scientific, yet are as accurate as science can well make them, and that of time is of such daring and beauty that, once heard, it can never be forgotten. THE ETERNITY OF MATTER. All matter, indeed, is continually changing, and that into ten thousand forms; but that it is changeable does in no wise imply * Sermon on Eternity, paragraph 1. Ibid., paragraph 4. that it is perishable. The substance may remain one and the same, though under innumerably different forms. It is very possible any portion of matter may be resolved into the atoms of which it was originally composed; but what reason have we to believe that one of these atoms ever was or ever will be annihilated?... Yea, by this [fire] "the heavens themselves will be dissolved; the elements shall melt with fervent heat." But they will be only dissolved, not destroyed; they will melt, but they will not perish. Though they lose their present form, yet not a particle of them will ever lose its existence; but every atom of them will remain under one form or other to all eternity.* Such words as these, written over a hundred years ago, would not be out of place in a modern work on conservation of energy. THE CREATION. He first created the four elements out of which the whole universe was composed-earth, water, air, and fire, all mingled together in one common mass. The greater part of this-the earth and water-were utterly without form till God infused a principle of motion, commanding the air to move "upon the face of the waters." In the next place "the Lord God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Here were the four constituent parts of the universe, the true, original, simple elements. They were all essentially distinct from each other; and yet so intimately mixed together in all compound bodies that we cannot find any, be it ever so minute, which does not contain them all.t This earth, air, fire, and water notion of the elementary structure of the universe was the ancient one, but long before Wesley's day more correct ideas had begun to prevail. In fact, in his own times Black, Cavendish, and Priestley, in England, and Lavoisier and Scheele, on the Continent, were publishing the result of their experiments, out of which came modern chemistry. Throughout the remainder of this sermon Wesley assumes that the universe bore quite a different aspect when first created for innocent man to what it became after the fall of Adam: that when sin entered into the world it brought with it such sweeping changes in the appearance and processes of nature as to practically result in a re-creation. Since God pronounced that all "was good" Wesley assumed *Sermon on Eternity, paragraph 7. + God's Approbation of His Works, paragraph 1. that every thing was good according to his own ideas of perfection, after the following manner: And every part was fertile as well as beautiful; it was no way deformed by rough or ragged rocks, it did not shock the view with horrid precipices, huge chasms, or dreary caverns; with deep impassable morasses or deserts of barren sand.* * After having smoothed out the wrinkles of the original earth until it threatened to become as even as the top of a bald head, we are pleased to discover that he leaves us some phrenological bumps in the way of hills and probably mountains, but these he concedes on the condition that they must not be abrupt or difficult of ascent. "It is highly probable that they rose and fell by almost insensible degrees." As the exterior, so was likewise the interior of the earth, in most perfect order and harmony. Hence there were no agitations within the bowels of the globe, no violent convulsions, no concussions of the earth, no earthquakes; but all was unmoved as the pillars of heaven. There were then no such things as eruptions of fire; there were no volcanoes or burning mountains.t Since we learn from this that Vesuvius and Etna are younger than the human race, we are left to the alternative of believing that they are less than six thousand years old, or that the creation of man must be pushed backward through vast periods into the geological past. The element of water, it is probable, was then mostly confined within the great abyss. Hence it is probable there was no external sea in the paradisaical earth; none until the great deep burst the barriers which were originally appointed for it. Indeed, there was not then that need of the ocean for navigation which there is now; for either every country produced whatever was requisite either for the necessity or comfort of its inhabitants, or man, being then (as he will be again at the resurrection) equal to angels, was made able to convey himself at his pleasure to any given distance. But whether there was sea or not, there were rivers sufficient to water the earth and make it very plenteous. But there were no putrid lakes, no turbid or stagnating waters. Surely no one could be accused of being overcurious should he ask, Since there were no seas, no putrid lakes, no stagnating waters, into what could the waters have emptied ? * God's Approbation of His Works, par. 2. +Ibid., par. 3. Ibid., par. 4. The sun, the fountain of fire, Of this great world both eye and soul, was situated at the most exact distance from the earth, so as to yield a sufficient quantity of heat (neither too little nor too much) to every part of it. God had not yet Bid his angels turn askance There was therefore then no country that groaned under "the rage of Arctos and eternal frost." There was no violent winter, no sultry summer; no extreme, either of heat or cold. No soil was burnt up by the solar heat; none uninhabitable through the want of it.* For there were then no impetuous currents of air, no tempestuous winds, no furious hail, no torrents of rain, no rolling thunders or forked lightnings. One perennial spring was perpetually smiling over the whole surface of the earth. On the third day God commanded all kinds of vegetables to spring out of the earth. Some of these were adapted to particular climates or particular exposures; while vegetables of more general use (as wheat in particular) were not confined to one country, but would flourish almost in every climate."t ... Here Wesley was evidently entangled in the meshes of his speculations, for since the "sun was at the most exact distance from the earth, so as to yield a sufficient quantity of heat to every part of it," and there was one perennial spring, there could be no particular climate or exposures in which the vegetables were to flourish in every climate. Whether comets are to be numbered among the stars, and whether they were parts of the original creation, is perhaps not so easily determined, at least with certainty; as we have nothing but probable conjecture either concerning their nature or their use. We know not whether (as some ingenious men have imagined) they are ruined worlds-worlds that have undergone a general conflagration-or whether (as others not improbably suppose) they are immense reservoirs of fluids, appointed to revolve at certain seasons and to supply the still decreasing moisture of the earth. But certain we are that they did not either produce or portend any evil. They did not (as many have fancied since) From their horrid hair We should be glad to credit Wesley with the belief that comets did at no time portend evil, instead of during the continuance of the original creation only, when there was no evil to *God's Approbation of His Works, par. 6. + Ibid., par. 9. ‡ Ibid., par. 10. |